Kills Birds’ latest track, “Rabbit” might be the most appropriate, least on the nose titled-track in existence. Coming in like a blast out of canon, vocalist Nina Ljeti is wild-eyed and rocking furiously. The song speaks to her experience in an abusive relationship — the details of which she could have chosen to expose and potentially ruin this person with, but has kept private. You can see the pent up frustration of containing this for so long pour out of her. Catching herself in breathless, quiet moments, you see her tremble. It is in these moments that she looks like the “rabbit”. For such a powerful force to have this moment of vulnerability in all this chaos and distortion is striking and unsettling.
The band adds, “For Rabbit, we wanted to depart from the lo-fi aesthetic of our first record and come back with something that was super vivid, bold and direct. The idea was to capture the raw energy of our live performance, particularly from Nina, in the sterile and stilted setting of a film set, with the camera itself becoming this kind of ominous force that manipulates and distorts what it captures.”
There are 101 ways for a music video on a traditional film set to go wrong, but director Susie Francis has gotten it very right. Making the camera the disorienting viewpoint, and interspersing glitching and abstractions, combined the band’s frenetic energy makes for an impactful and unforgettable 2 minutes — with Ljeti’s “how could I, how could I, how could I,” ringing in your ears hours after the fact.
“Rabbit” is the first track off Kills Birds upcoming album Married out November 12 via KRO and Royal Mountain.